Howard Rheingold On Our Mobile World

Roland Piquepaille writes "Howard Rheingold is the well-known author of "Smart Mobs" and many other books describing the evolution of our societies. His last book predicted the transformation of our society into a mobile one. Four years later, his forecast is more than confirmed. As one of the futurologists who can detect the emerging technology trends behind our daily lives, I wanted to know what Howard was thinking in 2006. He was kind enough to agree for an interview which was conducted by e-mail in mid-June. We discuss the importance of mobile technology, blogs, the changing climate, and the future of surveillance" From the article: "The power of the technologies packed into mobile devices continues to multiply, the diffusion of devices to all parts of the world and socioeconomic strata broadens, the spread of knowledge about how to use technologies to organize political, economic, social, cultural collective action quickens. It is in the convergence of the technical, cognitive, and social forces generates that the real power of smart mobs -- for both constructive and destructive."

Just Criticism

[Umbral Blot]

First let me point out that given 2006 is now the sentance "I wanted to know what Howard was thinking in 2006" should be written as "I wanted to know what Howard is thinking now", unless I have been unknowningly sucked into a time warp.

Secondly if that quote is representative of the article as a whole then I say stay far far away from TFA on this one, since that 4 line quote translates to: Technology will make things change faster, and online communities will become more important. Since that is what he predicted originally it doesn't seem like he has anything new to say. (except perhaps to add more buzzwords into the fray)

Slashdot does it again!

[Anonymous Coward]

Once Again

Slashdot shows its support for Roland Piquepaille by sending its hoards to his advertising based site.

When will those slashdot fools learn?